The most important
work we do at CWA is at the bargaining table, gaining better wages,
working conditions and terms of employment for our members. But again
and again, we see how many advances made at the bargaining table can be
lost through a single action of Congress or a state legislature.
Virtually every day Congress and state legislatures across the country
make decisions that vitally affect us-regarding telecommunicationspolicy, taxes, social
security, safety and health, the budget, pensions, our children's
schools. The list is endless.
The concerns of
working families are every bit as valid as those of corporate interests.
Union members know that working families have the right to be heard in
the American political process. Without their voice, there would be no
employer-provided health care, no minimum wage, no overtime pay, no job
safety protections, and no retirement or job security.
Last
year, forces from anti-union coalitions introduced and filed to put
"Right to Work for Less" on the Colorado Ballot. These out of state
sponsors have had a Colorado Legislator introduce it periodically in the
State Legislature without success. Once that Initiative was introduced,
workers from Colorado decided to fight back. CWA has been a major
stakeholder and is committed to fighting back anywhere workplace justice
is in danger.
When the Colorado AFL-CIO needed someone to be a proponent for an
initiative regarding Corporate Crime, they called upon CWA because of
it's ties with some of the worst corporate criminals in
telecommunications history. Lew Ellingson is a Staff Representative for
the Communications Workers of America and a Qwest retiree and agreed to
be one of the 2 proponents of this measure. This initiative has gotten a
lot of attention because it appears that some businesses believe that
holding corporate criminals accountable for their crimes hurts the
economy in some way. Below is an article about this Colorado struggle:
By DAN FROSCH,
DENVER — For 30
years, Lew Ellingson loved being a telephone man.
His
job splicing phone cables was one that he says gave him “a true sense of
accomplishment,” first for Northwestern Bell, then US West and finallyQwest Communications International.
But by the time Mr. Ellingson retired from Qwest last year at 52, he had
grown angry. An insider trading scandal had damaged the company’s
reputation, and the life savings of former colleagues had evaporated in
the face of Qwest’s stock troubles.
“It was a good place,” he said wistfully. “And then something like this
happened.”
Now, Mr. Ellingson is the public face of a proposed ballot measure in
Colorado that seeks to create what supporters hope will be the nation’s
toughest corporate fraud law.
Buttressed by local advocacy groups and criticized by a Colorado
business organization, the measure would make business executives
criminally responsible if their companies run afoul of the law. It would
also permit any Colorado resident to sue the executives under such
circumstances. Proceeds from successful suits would go to the state.
If passed by voters in November, the proposal would leave top business
officers having unprecedented individual accountability, said Mr.
Ellingson, a member of Protect Colorado’s Future, a coalition of
advocacy groups that supports the initiative.
“If nothing else, these folks in charge of the corporations and
companies will think twice about cutting corners to make themselves look
more profitable than they really are,” he said.
The plight of Mr. Ellingson’s former employer, Qwest, based in Denver,
was a motivation for the proposal, said Jess Knox, executive director of
Protect Colorado’s Future.
Last April, a jury in Denver convicted Qwest’s former chief executive,
Joseph P. Nacchio, of 19 of 42 counts of insider trading. Mr. Nacchio
was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $19
million and forfeit $52 million in money he earned from stock sales in
2001.
In March, however, a federal appeals court panel reversed the conviction
on the grounds that a judge had improperly excluded expert defense
testimony.
The panel ordered that Mr. Nacchio receive a new trial in front of a
different judge.
“The reality is that for years, not just in Colorado but in many states,
citizen taxpayers have paid the price for C.E.O.’s and companies who
break the rules in order to get ahead,” Mr. Knox said.
Ultimately, the proposal would extend criminal and civil liability to
executives who knew about corporate fraud and did nothing to stop it,
but who were not necessarily involved in it, said Mark Grueskin, a
lawyer for Protect Colorado’s Future.
Not surprisingly, the proposal, and subsequent versions with alternative
language that have been suggested by Protect Colorado’s Future, has
generated sharp opposition from Colorado’s business community.
If the measure is approved, some fear that the courts will become
overwhelmed with frivolous lawsuits. Those lawsuits, in turn, could
bankrupt small and midsize companies and make it more difficult for
legitimate lawsuits to succeed, said Joe Blake, president and chief
executive of the Denver Metro
Chamber of Commerce.
“We’re very concerned that any number of people could crowd the docket
and frustrate the court system with suits that are perhaps
well-intentioned but highly frivolous,” he said. “We’re going to have
chaos out here.”
Mr. Grueskin countered that the measure would parallel current state law
and require plaintiffs to pay for their lawsuits if a court ruled that
they were frivolous.
“There is an inherent disincentive to use this as a means for a gadfly
to act as a corporate obstructionist,” he said. “I would be surprised if
there would be many responsible companies that would have a problems
with this.”
Legal fees aside, Dean Krehmeyer, executive director of the Business
Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics at the University of Virginia,
which conducts ethics training for executives and directors, says the
litigious nature of the measure could create a chasm between businesses
and their communities.
“Leading business organizations and communities can create value by
working in partnership, not necessarily by using the courts as a first
option,” he said.
The measure, whose language was already approved by a state title board,
must receive 76,000 signatures in support within six months to be placed
on the November ballot. Protect Colorado’s Future said it planned to
start a signature campaign.
A lawyer for the chamber of commerce, Doug Friednash, said the business
group would file a challenge to the proposal in Colorado Supreme Court
on Tuesday. He said the language could mislead voters into thinking they
were supporting a measure that simply cracked down on crooked
executives, as opposed to one that left business owners and other
employees susceptible to lawsuits.
But Protect Colorado’s Future has already drafted a modified version,
cleared by the review board, that limits the initiative to executive
officials, its true intention, the group said. The chamber of commerce,
has asked the board to reconsider its decision on that version at a
hearing on Wednesday.
Regardless of which version of the measure is put to voters, Mr.
Ellingson predicts that Coloradoans, with the fallout from Qwest still
fresh, will back the proposal in overwhelming numbers.
“I don’t know who can oppose this. This is common sense,” he said. “We
need businesses to survive, but we don’t need criminals running them.”
Spurred on by President Cohen’s
call to action, CWA Local 7019's
officers and members with support from IBEW and AFSCME, met at Senator
John McCain’s Phoenix office to ask the Senator to support the Employee
Free Choice Act.
The Senator was unavailable to
meet with his constituents, to address our concerns or allow us the
opportunity to ask for his support. The Senator was out of the office
drumming up support for his current campaign As of May 31st,
Senator McCain has not lent his support to this important
legislation.
As employees
represented by CWA, we have not seen the fight that others see when
trying to form a union. We don’t see how companies intimidate
employees with their jobs if they’re even caught talking to a union
representative. The Employee Free Choice Act is supported by many
Legislators and will ensure that workers can form a union without the
fear of retaliation. However, Senator John McCain (R) has not seen fit
to make his position known on this very important issue. CWA took it to
his office and the streets.
State
Representative Joe Atkins was talking on the phone with a computer
company's customer representative recently when he asked the technician,
"What's up with that?' "And she said, 'Up where?' " said Atkins, DFL-Inver
Grove Heights. Only after more conversation did he discover that she was
unfamiliar with American idioms and had answered from a call center in
New Delhi, India, Atkins said.
Fueled by
increasing consumer concerns about the explosive growth of offshore call
centers, and more specifically about the security of information
transmitted to foreigners, Atkins and other DFLers are pushing for
legislation that would entitle Minnesotans to request an alternative
U.S. call center if personal or financial information is being sought.
The bill,
sponsored by Atkins and Sen. Dan Sparks, DFL-Austin, also would require
those on the other end of the line to disclose, if asked, what country
they are in.
"We're
getting more complaints from folks who say they can't understand
customer service people, with the language barrier, and people are extra
nervous about giving out personal information," Sparks said.
Versions of
the "where-are-you" and "give-me-an-American-number" proposals have been
pushed for at least a couple of years at the Legislature. They were
opposed by businesses and have been modified to address corporate
concerns. Business interests are studying it, willing to work further
with sponsors, but still haven't approved it, said Tom Hesse, vice
president for governmental affairs of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.
"Any time one
state wants to regulate interstate or international commerce, it raises
red flags," Hesse said. Federal laws that address identity theft are
sufficient to protect consumers dealing with companies that use foreign
call centers, Hesse said. Companies concerned about the bill include
financial institutions, health-care companies and retailers, he said.
Atkins
scoffed at the idea that Minnesota can't regulate international
commerce. "We do it all the time. If they are doing business here, they
are subject to Minnesota law, and it doesn't matter if they are in
Pakistan or India."
Labor power
The sponsors
acknowledge that an impetus for the bills is organized labor's support,
specifically the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Union leaders
say hundreds of thousands of communication and information technology
jobs have been "outsourced" to foreign countries, especially India, in
the past decade.
The
legislation might not have much effect on the continuing outsourcing of
American jobs, said Tim Lovaasen, president of the Minnesota council of
the CWA, adding that it really serves as more of an "awareness bill"
than a solution to the problem.
"If enough
people raise enough stink about this, maybe they'll bring a service
center or two back to the United States," Lovaasen said. "And there is
very legitimate fear about identify theft. If it happens in a foreign
country, it can be very hard to prosecute, and you are in big trouble."
Some form of
the legislation might be pushed by the new Democratic majorities in
Congress. A Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act was introduced by
Sen. John Kerry in 2003. Atkins said Democratic majorities in Washington
and St. Paul give the bills new life.
A Minnesota
legislator with roots in India, Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, R-Fridley, said
he is concerned that some support for the bill is driven by resentment
of foreigners and "jingoism."I have just as many difficulties dealing
with call centers in Louisiana," he said.
But any
effort to help consumers and encourage more call centers in Minnesota,
especially in rural areas, makes sense, Chaudhary said. "We shouldn't be
off-shoring, we should be North-Shoring," Chaudhary said, referring to
efforts to establish call centers in economically distressed rural
areas, especially northeastern Minnesota.
Strong
support for the legislation is building in the union stronghold of the
Iron Range, said Sen. David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm. He said call
centers for Northwest Airlines and Blue Cross-Blue Shield are doing well
on the Range.
Last
year, forces from anti-union coalitions introduced and filed to put
"Right to Work for Less" on the Colorado Ballot. These out of state
sponsors have had a Colorado Legislator introduce it periodically in the
State Legislature without success. Once that Initiative was introduced,
workers from Colorado decided to fight back. CWA has been a major
stakeholder and is committed to fighting back anywhere workplace justice
is in danger. 
His
job splicing phone cables was one that he says gave him “a true sense of
accomplishment,” first for Northwestern Bell, then US West and finally
State
Representative Joe Atkins was talking on the phone with a computer
company's customer representative recently when he asked the technician,
"What's up with that?' "And she said, 'Up where?' " said Atkins, DFL-Inver
Grove Heights. Only after more conversation did he discover that she was
unfamiliar with American idioms and had answered from a call center in
New Delhi, India, Atkins said. 